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Cachao, Mambo’s Inventor, Dies at 89
By JON PARELES
Published: March 24, 2008
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Correction Appended
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Israel Cachao López, the Cuban bassist and composer who was a
pioneer of the mambo, died on Saturday in Coral Gables, Fla. He was
89 and lived in Coral Gables.
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The cause was complications resulting
from kidney failure, said Nelson
Albareda, whose company, Eventus, was his manager.
Cachao, as he was universally known, transformed the
rhythm of Cuban music when he and his brother, the
pianist and cellist Orestes López, extended and accelerated
the final section of the stately Cuban danzón into the
mambo. “My brother and I would say to each other,
‘Mambea, mambea ahí,’ which meant to add swing to that
part,” he said in a 2006 interview with The Miami Herald.
The springy mambo bass lines Cachao created in the late
1930’s — simultaneously driving and playful — became a
Jack Vartoogian/FrontRowPhotos
foundation of modern Cuban music, of the salsa that grew
Cachao playing at the JVC Jazz
Festival in New York in 2006.
out of it, and also of Latin-influenced rock ’n’ roll and
rhythm-and-blues. For much of the 20th century,
Cachao’s innovations set the world dancing.
In the late 1950’s, he brought another breakthrough to Latin music with descargas: latenight Havana jam sessions that merged Afro-Cuban rhythms, Cuban songs and the
convolutions of jazz. The mixture of propulsion and exploration in those recordings has
influenced salsa and jazz musicians ever since.
Cachao’s 80-year performing career dated back to the silent movie era. Born in Havana
in 1918, he came from a family of musicians and studied classical music. He began his
public career at 8 years old, playing bongos in a children’s group. A year later, he had
stood on a crate to play bass for the Cuban pianist and singer, Bola de Nieve,
accompanying silent films. At 13, he became the bassist of the Havana Philharmonic, and
he performed with the orchestra from 1930 to 1960. But he also played Havana clubs
with his brother Orestes, working with a noted Cuban dance orchestra, Arcaño y Sus
Maravillas, and with their own groups.
“His phrasing and his attack and how he functioned in the orchestra was unique to
Cachao,” the actor Andy Garcia, who reinvigorated Cachao’s career by producing albums
and documentaries in the 1990’s, said in a telephone interview on Sunday. “He always
played bass with the bow in his hand. He would go back and forth. And as he was
strumming with his fingers, he always had the bow in his hand and the bow would strike
the bass percussively.”
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the bass percussively.”
It has been estimated that the López brothers wrote thousands of songs. They worked in
established Cuban forms, like the elegant charanga and danzón, while testing new ideas.
In 1937, they came up with the first mambo. It was a failure. “It was too fast for
dancing, and we were six months without any work,” Cachao told The Miami Herald in
1995. “People didn’t like it. When we slowed it down, then it became danceable.”
The original mambos were for the string ensembles that played dances at the time. But
big-band leaders picked up the rhythm and applied it to more aggressive brass
arrangements — notably Dámaso Pérez Prado, who popularized the mambo worldwide.
During the 1950’s and 1960’s, the mambo filled dance floors at New York City’s famous
Palladium club and nationwide. In Havana, Cachao gathered top Cuban musicians for
jam sessions or descargas, and a handful of recordings by Cachao y Su Ritmo Caliente —
beginning with an after-midnight studio session in Havana in 1957 — became
cornerstones of salsa.
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Cachao left Cuba in 1962. He spent two years in Spain, then came to New York City,
where he performed with mambo bands led by Tito Rodríguez, José Fajardo and Eddie
Palmieri. For decades, he worked almost entirely as a sideman. He moved to Las Vegas
— where he lived until he became, he said, a compulsive gambler — and then to Miami.
Cachao made only three albums as a leader between 1970 and 1990. In Miami, he played
at clubs, bar mitzvahs and airport hotel lounges, although he hadn’t been forgotten. Mr.
Garcia said, quoting the Cuban saxophonist Paquito d’Rivera, “All the people who
needed to know who Cachao was, knew.”
In 1990, Mr. Garcia — a longtime fan of Cachao’s music — organized recording sessions
with leading Cuban musicians and a tribute concert for Cachao in Miami. “Master
Sessions Volume I” and “Master Sessions Volume II” were made in five days; Volume I
won a Grammy Award. The concert was also the basis for a documentary, “Cachao,
Como Su Ritmo No Hay Dos.”
Mr. Garcia went on to produce two more albums for Cachao, “Cuba Linda” (2000) and
the Grammy-winning “Ahora Sí” (2004). Another documentary, “Cachao: Uno Más,” will
be released next month. During one recording session, Mr. Garcia recalled, he suggested
that Cachao write a descarga that started with a fugue. “He said, ‘Tell the musicians to
go and take a break and bring me a sheet of paper and a pencil,’ ” Mr. Garcia recalled.
Using a conga drum as a desk and whistling the melodies, Cachao wrote a four-part
fugue during the break, and recorded it immediately.
With renewed recognition, Cachao spent the 1990’s and 2000’s touring and recording
worldwide and collecting awards. He performed with younger admirers and with his
Cuban contemporaries, including the pianist Bebo Valdés, joining Mr. Valdés on a
Grammy-winning trio album “El Arte del Sabor.”
He received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts,
and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Before he grew ill in early March,
Cachao had planned a European tour and new recording sessions. His manager, Mr.
Albareda, said that Cachao told him: “You’ve got years. I’ve got minutes.”
He is survived by a daughter, María Elena López and a grandson, Hector Luis Vega.
Orestes López’s son, Orlando López, is nicknamed Cachaito, and has been the bassist
with important Cuban groups including the Buena Vista Social Club.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: March 28, 2008
An obituary on Monday about Israel López, the Cuban bassist and composer known as
Cachao, who was a pioneer of the mambo, misidentified the documentary about him
that is to be released next month. It is “Cachao: Uno Más,” not “Cachao, Ahora Sí.”
(“Ahora Sí” was a documentary released in 2004 with the CD of that name.)
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(“Ahora Sí” was a documentary released in 2004 with the CD of that name.)
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